Does not the House rather believe that, if England were to exhibit any faltering in her policy, they would reverse their policy also, and the slave-trade become as general and rife as it was a few years ago?"

I am not aware of any public utterance of Lord Aber deen on the subject of the "Aberdeen Act" after June 17, 1858. He died in December, 1860. But Lord Malmesbury has twice said in the House of Lords, that Lord Aberdeen, in a private conversation with him shortly before his death, declared that it would give him pleasure to see the act repealed. Lord Aberdeen said quite as much as this when he introduced the bill. Lord Malmesbury further said (July 14, 1863), that Lord Aberdeen had told him that "he had never felt satisfied in his mind that he was right in proposing that act." I doubt the accuracy of this statement, which is at variance with the public declarations of Lord Aberdeen and Sir Robert Peel.

I think that most readers, when they have before them the words of Lord Aberdeen in 1856 and 1858, as given by Hansard, will say that Mr. Osborne was not provided with the true explanation of why Lord Aberdeen did not propose the repeal of the act while he was Prime Minister from 1852 to 1855. Mr. Osborne said he did "not doubt that Lord Aberdeen would have repealed the act but for the presence in his cabinet of the noble lord (Lord Palmerston.)" Mr. Osborne also in his speech turned Lord Aberdeen's words of June 17, 1858, as given by Hansard, "He was not sure that that time had arrived yet," into "He was not sure that the proper time for its repeal had not already arrived."

It must be obvious to any man of sense that whatever

Lord Aberdeen may have said in 1845, even if it had been ten times stronger than it was, or whatever opinions he may have expressed after he ceased to be Premier, even if they had been stronger than there is any sign of, could not overbear the responsibility of succeeding Ministers to act according to conscience and conviction.

What may be fairly said about Lord Aberdeen is that, according to his own declarations, he proposed the “Aberdeen Act" in 1845 with the greatest reluctance, under an overwhelming sense of duty and necessity, that he regarded it as a measure necessitated by a long course of conduct of the Brazilian government which he himself described as "systematic violation" of treaty engagements, and as "justifying, and almost calling for, an expression of national resentment,"-that he always hoped to be enabled to repeal the act by an entire suppression of the slave-trade or by the conclusion of a new Slavetrade Treaty, that, after he ceased to be Premier, in 1856, he twice expressed, when out of office, his hope that the time for repealing the act was near at hand, but that on both occasions he spoke doubtingly, and on the last (June 17, 1858) said "he was not sure that the time had arrived yet," and recommended to the care of the government of Lord Derby, who, he said, "must have more information" than himself, the realization of the hope which he had ventured to express when he introduced the act in question.

Lord Aberdeen's hope will, doubtless, receive full care and attention from Lord Palmerston and Lord Russell, who can, however, hardly be expected to leave out of consideration the systematic violation for so many years of the treaty engagements of the Brazilian government as

F

to the emancipados. The "Story of the Free Africans,” which has preceded, may lead many readers to think that the following passage of one of my despatches to Lord Russell is not intemperate, unreasonable, or unjust :—

"I have, on various occasions, suggested to your lordship the importance of endeavouring, if possible, to conciliate and persuade the Brazilian government to measures leading to the ultimate extinction of slavery, and in the meantime mitigating its evils. Her Majesty's government have certainly done ample justice to the Brazilian efforts for the extinction of the slave-trade. The conduct of the government about the free blacks is not to their honour, and is such as to throw doubts on the singleness and purity of their motives in the abolition of the slave-trade. When I first brought the subject of the free blacks to your lordship's notice in my despatch of May 17, 1860, I ventured respectfully to suggest that it would be well for Her Majesty's government, if they revived this question, to be prepared to persevere for the attainment of what they might demand, for I could not but see that this was a question likely to lead to angry correspondence and difficulties with the Brazilian government." (May 3, 1862, in Slave-Trade Correspondence, Class B, presented 1863.)

66

CHAPTER VI.

SLAVERY IN BRAZIL.

RECENT STATEMENTS THAT SLAVERY IS DOOMED IN BRAZIL-CORRESPONDENT OF DAILY NEWS -THREE MILLIONS OF SLAVES-NATIONAL SLAVES-PRESENT PRICES-ADDRESS OF BRITISH AND FOREIGN ANTISLAVERY SOCIETY TO EMPEROR OF BRAZIL-STATEMENTS OF SENHOR ANDRADA OF THE LATE BRAZILIAN LEGATION AND OF SENHOR ALMEIDA PORTUGAL-SEPARATION OF SLAVE FAMILIES BY SALE "QUARTERLY REVIEW ON BRAZIL-NO BEGINNING YET OF ABOLITION OF SLAVERY.

THE question with Brazil as to the repeal of the "Aberdeen Act" does not lie within the narrow limits of Lord Aberdeen's statement at the time when he proposed the act; it lies in the general character for faith and trustworthiness of the Brazilian government; in its systematic and flagrant violations to the last of treaty engagements and solemn professions and promises, made by a long succession of Ministers-Saturnino, Viscount Uruguay, Viscount Abaeté, Paranhos-each speaking for the Emperor's government "in its corporate and enduring character," as to thousands of emancipados, and in the present condition of slavery in Brazil, to which I now pass.

Some months ago, the "correspondent" of the Daily News at Rio de Janeiro reported the introduction into the Brazilian Senate by Senhor Silveira da Motta of a measure for compulsory emancipation of slaves belonging to foreigners and to religious bodies; and took occasion to observe that "it is becoming every day more evident

that slavery is doomed in Brazil, and that, ere long, some measure will be taken having for its object the entire suppression of the system." (Daily News, of March 5.)

If the same correspondent has since reported that this measure met with little or no support and was quickly rejected, such a letter from him has escaped my eye. Senhor Silveira da Motta is a private Senator, not a member of the government. The measure which he proposed was for emancipation of all slaves belonging to foreigners of countries in which slavery is unlawful, belonging to convents and religious bodies, and belonging to the Brazilian nation or government. The same Senator has of late years several times proposed measures for prohibiting public auctions of slaves and separation of husband and wife, and parents and children, in sales; for facilitating manumissions on decease of owners in certain cases, and for indirectly discouraging the employment of slaves in domestic service in cities; and all his proposals have been quickly rejected, like his measure of the present year. These unsuccessful proposals of Senator Silveira da Motta are the only attempts that I know of which have been made to curtail or qualify the slavery system in Brazil, where the Rio correspondent of the Daily News has written that it is becoming every day more evident that slavery is doomed.

In a letter more lately published in the Daily News (August 5,) the Rio correspondent reverts to certain statements of his, which I had not seen, that "a great number of slaves are liberated voluntarily every year by their owners and by the government," mentions the recent emancipation by will of fourteen slaves by one proprietor